The subject matter herein relates generally to wire alignment aids in terminal crimping systems.
Electrical terminals may be crimped onto wires by a crimping machine, such as a bench machine or a lead making machine, to form a lead. In a typical crimping operation, a terminal is placed in a crimping zone of the crimping machine and a wire is inserted into a ferrule or barrel of the terminal. Then, a ram of the crimping machine moves toward the wire and terminal along a crimp stroke. The ram pinches or crimps the terminal around the wire, which mechanically and electrically connects the wire to the terminal and forms the lead.
The position and orientation of the wire relative to the terminal in the crimping zone is critical to the overall production performance and efficiency of the crimping machine. For example, production leads have to meet very strict crimp specifications. A wire that is not properly located in either the side-to-side or front-to-back directions relative to the terminal will not meet the crimp specifications. Leads that do not meet crimp specifications are discarded, which wastes time and materials.
Typically, an operator has to make one or more mechanical adjustments to the crimping machine and/or a wire feeder device in order to accurately position the wire relative to the terminal in the crimping zone. However, the wire and the terminal may be of a small scale that makes viewing the wire and terminal, and especially any slight misalignment between the wire and the terminal, difficult to see with the naked eye in order for the operator to determine which adjustments to make. The difficulty of viewing the wire relative to the terminal is further complicated because many crimping machines do not provide an operator with easy access to the working zone where the crimping operation occurs. For example, in automatic lead making machines, multiple wire-handling devices may crowd the working area, and the working sides of the devices may all face a central area of the machine, making it difficult if not impossible for an operator outside of the machine to access and view the crimping zone.
Often, only fine adjustments are needed to separate an accepted lead from a discarded lead. The operator must exercise great care, exceptional vision, and finesse to adjust the crimping machine and/or the wire feeder so that the wire is properly centered relative to the terminal. The inability to view, up close, the wire relative to the terminal may not provide an operator with enough information to make the necessary adjustments in a timely fashion.